Do what you can but not too much!

8^th November 2017

No is a complete sentence (need to remember this!)

That moment you have a realisation!  For me yesterday it was having a text conversation with someone who was trying to help and encourage me to get back on track and stop eating all the pies when I didn’t have a problem with being off track.  I suddenly realised my eating was the only thing I’m not having to control right now and it felt good, I know I’ll get back to healthy and I also know I’m not doing loads of damage.  Last weekend was a bit like our Christmas because of visitors, now I’m back to eating well just without the recording of it, 16 hour work days have that effect on you.  Once I’ve done the couple of meeting support visits I’ve promised to do then that’ll be me, I need some time back.  I want to cook and sit and eat, I want to tidy my house, sort my shed, feed my birds, squirrels and my not my cats, I want to have the banter with my mom whilst we sit and watch rubbish tele, I want to sit in my kitchen on these cold winter days and just watch the squirrels and birds eating their breakfast whilst drinking a brew.  Yeah I want my slower paced life back, I don’t like all this rushing.

Especially since I’ve had this camera fitted in the living room to show me moms okay, obviously because it’s new and I haven’t actually had time to sit and read the instructions, it’s telling me on my phone at the moment every time someone moves in the room, I sat and watched yesterday when I was in my office out of curiosity really for a little while after it sent me a notification, there was mom sitting up the corner and she’d helped herself to a bag of Maltesers, I went to ask her if she wanted some lunch and bless her, as I was walking down the stairs I saw her shove the chocolates down the side of the chair, she declined food and said she wasn’t hungry.  Back in my office I watched her happily chomp on her Maltesers.  Gotta love the devious woman.  She spends a lot of hours sat in that room alone, I want to be able to lessen some of that time by being here more.  This morning she said to me, when you’re at work and I hear keys in the front door, I think, “oh good, that’s our Anne”, and I’m dead glad to see her.  Please spend time with those you love, you never know when you won’t have the chance. 

Still not shopped, so yesterday I threw some cook from frozen chicken breasts, edamame beans, lemon and herb seasoning, olives and a tin of cooked lentils in the slow cooker on low then when I got back I added a tin of potatoes and sweetcorn and left it a bit longer on high.  It didn’t look the best but it tasted alright, my eggs on toast at breakfast looked and tasted delicious though.  For tea I had a few cheese and crackers, I wasn’t really hungry so happily enjoyed a small plate of delicious.

Will take salmon out the freezer this morning I think, maybe a WW frozen ready meal for tea and eggs for breakfast again.  Although I think I’m going to put grey peas and bacon medallions in the slow cooker see how it turns out. 

I’m waiting for the shop to open so I can pop over and buy milk and bread, no organisation in the house at all this week, but we’ll survive, worse things going on in the world for sure, might get a pack of peppers and do stuffed peppers, mmm nice, get some veggies in my system!   Start the halved peppers off in the oven, then mix

a tin of tuna with diced spring onion, bit of tomato puree, diced mushroom, fill the peppers and top with a bit of cheese.  That’s a quick and easy to do.

Even easier is roasting my salmon at the same time as my peppers halved then stuff the peppers with rice, couscous, quinoa or lentils, anything really.

Right I’m going to go get milk, busy day again, its Michael’s funeral later, I’m going to say goodbye to the special man who impacted my meetings for many years, and he is missed for sure.   Thanks to my generous members I’ve got £200 to give to his mom instead of flowers for the charities that helped Michael enjoy life whilst he was alive.

Let’s enjoy today BeYOUtiful, reminding ourselves we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow.

How do I care about myself?

7^th November 2017

One day at a time.

It’s hard!  I’m struggling!  I’ve lost my mojo!  I saw a lot of comments like this one yesterday, I also saw just as many that said things like ‘I’m on it!’ ‘In the zone!’ & ‘back on plan’.  This proves the road to weight loss success is never straight, it’s full of twists and turns.   Wherever you are on that road right now, it’s okay, don’t worry, keep going and you’ll find you way back to success.

I had a very heartfelt message yesterday and without posting it in its entirety, they were asking “How do I care about myself?”

That is such a difficult question to answer when someone is in a bad place to start with as all the walls seem dark and there doesn’t appear to be a door out of that place.  It’s easy for me to say “It starts with self-acceptance, realising you’re good enough and deserve to be taken care of”, it’s not so easy to do that, I get that.

Sadly so many of us won’t love ourselves until we’re thinner, prettier or find that perfect partner - whatever it is you think will make your life better, it probably won’t. 

Taking care of yourself, start small, you’re probably not going to wake up tomorrow and think, “Yay, I like me, I’ve decided I do and I’m going to start saying no to everyone when I don’t have time, putting myself first all the time and looking after my health and wellbeing”.  I’d love it if you did but I know you probably won’t.

Okay starting small, what could that look like.  Eating well is always a good place to start, don’t think about weight loss, think about health, imagine you’re feeding a growing child and you want them to have energy to spend time playing with their friends, what sort of foods would you give them?  

An easy thing you can do is drink some water, hydrate yourself. 

It’s a bit like going on a long journey, if you have a car in good condition, you’re likely to get further.  If you get your body in better condition, everything is easier, including changing your mindset. 

Believe you can and you will (even if you have to fake those thoughts initially).

Be gentle with yourself and celebrate successes, they may be as little as getting to the end of the day and realising you have drunk a few glasses of water and eaten some fruit or that you’ve made it through a day without giving yourself a hard time.

If you have a setback, use positive self-talk, think what would you say to a friend or loved one who was struggling with life in general?

What is really important to remember is that taking care of you isn’t a quick fix that makes life rosy, it won’t and you will probably have setbacks.  I take care of me and I like myself a lot but the last few weeks, I’ve not been making my health and wellbeing a priority at all, it’s frustrating the hell out of me but I’m just letting it go at the end of every day and saying, I’ll try again tomorrow.

Take yesterday for instance, it started well, I had eggy crumpets for breakfast, then I was so crazy busy and had to be in Leominster for 4 that I sat and ate 3 crackers with some cheese on.  I had to stop for petrol and whilst in paying I checked out the food, I was going to have a sarnie and a bag of McCoys but instead I had a bag of French Fries, not ideal but a bit better, I could’ve eaten loads more crackers too.  Then once in Leominster where I met up with a fellow coach, we had lunch in Morrisons, I don’t know what went on there but I ordered chicken pie!  What the hell, I don’t even eat pies or pastry, let’s just say I didn’t leave any.  Does that make me a failure, should I be beating myself up over it?  Erm I don’t think so and I refuse to, what I will do is draw yet another line in my notepad of my life and have eggs for breakfast again this morning (mostly because there is nothing else in my house).  The other thing I am going to do is spend a bit of time putting a plan in place, get some food in my fridge that is healthy, use some of the chicken stuff in the freezer, might go and see if there’s anything I can throw in the slow cooker in a minute I think.

Today, take time to stop and think what it is you want from your life, what isn’t working, what needs changing, what can you do today, right now, to start you off in the right direction? 

I see people day in day out, it’s amazing when it suddenly clicks for them, I love to be witness to that – you could be that next person!  Will you be?  Yeah come on BeYOUtiful, you can do this, get your arms and wrap them around your shoulders and give yourself a hug, you’re amazing, you just need to realise quite how much, there’s no one else on earth quite like you and that is your magic. xx

Back to No Count today, not No Counting at all!

6^th November 2017

Life tip – Do YOU and embrace the current season of your life.

I’ve just gone done to make a cuppa for mom and me, not been up long, before I went down I was in the bathroom cleaning my teeth thinking, ‘right, we’ve had a lovely weekend of indulgence, time to sort it out now and get on track’ then I walked in the kitchen and noticed the tub of crackers!  My first thought was, ‘well I can’t get on track till they’ve gone, plus that cheese in the fridge’ but as I’ve sat here, I’m reminding myself that I can, cheese is allowed on the plan, everything in moderation, so here goes me back in control complete with cheese. Watch this space!

I’ll be having eggy crumpets for breakfast because I bought them yesterday reduced, plus they’re really filling, maybe No Count is an option today, get some balance back, put the crackers out of sight, I don’t need to be eating them till the weekend really or as a little snack here and there, I’ll do the same with the cheese.  I need to clear my body out today.  We have leftover beef from yesterday’s dinner so I can have that on No Count too, I’m out this afternoon and won’t be back to late so I could take some beef sandwiches with me, yeah there’s a good idea. 

My kitchen’s painted – it looks amazing, I had to smile as I was explaining a colour to Alexis and she was getting me, I showed her a plate I have and said, ‘a bit like this but lighter, you know like an oatmeal’, when we were telling Terry, his eyes rolled back in his head as he said oh your like my rich clients when they say they want colours like ‘Egyptian cotton’ and I tell em they mean mucky white which is what the walls will be in a few months anyway.  He put me straight and told me the oatmeal colour I wanted was in fact Magnolia and you know what, he was right, that’s exactly the colour I wanted and it looks great.  Now to clean up the mess and then it’s nearly all finished, the floors next on the to-do list.

Luckily I’d put the beef in the oven on the morning on gas mark 1, we couldn’t get back in the room till about 4 because of the painting so in half hour I did the rest, peas (love frozen petit pois), yorkies (frozen cheap uns!), stuffing, leftover mash and gravy.  I had done roasters round the joint but they weren’t good, everything else on the plate was delicious though and the gravy, oh my days you cannot beat gravy made with the beef juices, veg water and bisto gravy granules, that’s how I like my gravy, you all can do whatever works for you, that’s what works for me.  How many points, I have no clue and neither do I care.  I know that we didn’t go crazy eating yesterday, I even had a Jam doughnut by the side of me and it’s still there, I didn’t need or want it.

The overindulging we did Saturday did me good as it reminded me that’s not how I eat and I won’t be doing that over Christmas now, so that’s a bonus.  Never regret your behaviour, the good days make you happy, the bad days give you experiences and the worst days give lessons, oh and the best days of course give amazing memories.   I’ve come away with memories this weekend and apart from the Stifado and the beef dinner none of the food we ate really played any part in those memories, the Stifado because my brother cooked for me, that was pretty precious and the beef dinner because I don’t often get to eat a Sunday roast with family.  Yeah the weekend was about much more than eating but I won’t lie some of the eating was good.

He’s to a busy but on track day on No Count, I’ve got this!  You’ve got this too BeYOUtiful, let’s do this!